Question

Professional baseball pitchers deliver pitches that can reach the blazing speed of 100 mph (miles per hour). A local team has drafted an up-and-coming, left-handed pitcher who can consistently pitch at 44.25 m/s ( 99.00 mph ) . Assuming a pitched ball has a mass of 0.1434 kg and has this speed just before a batter makes contact with it, how much kinetic energy does the ball have

Answer 1

Answer:

The ball has a kinetic energy of 140.39 Joules

Explanation:

The kinetic energy is defined as:

$KE = \frac{1}{2}mv^{2}$   (1)

Where m is the mass and v is the velocity

For this particular case, the speed of the ball is 44.25m/s and its mass is 0.1434Kg.

Therefore, equation 1 can be used:

$KE = \frac{1}{2}(0.1434Kg)(44.25m/s)^{2}$

But $1J = Kg.m^{2}/s^{2}$

$KE = 140.39J$    

                                       

Hence, the ball has a kinetic energy of 140.39 Joules.